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Undercuts fretwire so the fret ends fit over neck binding.

Undercuts fretwire cleanly.
There's gotta be an easier way to trim the ends of the frets to fit over the neck bindings, right? Our friend Bill Collings (of Collings Guitars) had an idea that inspired us to produce this simple and precise tool. It's become a repair shop favorite. It does an outstanding job of undercutting fretwire to fit over neck bindings, speeding up fret jobs on bound necks, and helps save the lacquer finish at the edges of the fingerboard. Just insert the wire to the desired depth in the guide notch, squeeze the handle, and the wire is quickly and cleanly undercut. No bending or crimping!

The Fret Tang Nipper is useful for unbound fingerboards too. Try nipping the fret tang to length before installing the fret. Now you'll only need to cut and file the overhanging crown, and the fret will be less likely to twist and unseat.

#1626 is for medium-width fretwire, .075" to .095" (1.90mm to 2.41mm)

#1649 is for wide fretwire, .100" to .120" (2.54mm to 3.05mm)

The Fret Tang Nipper is 6" long (152.40mm), including 4" (101.60mm) rubber-sleeved handles.

Learning curve

There was a bit of a learning curve (wasted fretwire) in determining what its maximum cut was - and that maximum was not big. Knowing this is important since I could not go back to make a second cut because it would mangle the crown. I would have liked to have been able to go back and nibble a little more of the tang away as needed on some frets. It's a good thing I started by the headstock and worked my way down as it allowed me to reuse some mis-trimmed frets. Still, it was a massive timesaver in my last bound-fingerboard refret once I learned its peculiarities. Some adjustment instructions would be nice as well instead of having to waste fretwire learning tool setup through experimentation.

Worked better than expected.

I bought these and immediately did a fret job with the Gold EVO frets... worried that these wouldn't hold up. But they did fine, I only messed up one fret and they didn't seem to degrade over the job... can't say how they would do over multiple jobs. But they held up better than my nippers (Not a stewmac one). Those chipped up real bad.

Won't be going back to hand filing

Simple little tool that's brilliant in application. Huge time saver and undercuts the fret wire smoothly with just a one motion squeeze of the handle. Get it....you won't regret the purchase and will recoup the cost of the tool in the first bound neck fret/refret job you do just in the time savings alone.